Author: Zen Cho
Publisher: Ace Books
Released: May 11, 2021
Received: NetGalley

Zen Cho’s Black Water Sister is not a novel for readers to miss out on, especially not if they enjoy fantasy, LGBT, and paranormal themes!

Jessamyn Teoh has not been having the best time lately. She’s flat broke, deep in the closet, and to make it worse: she’s moving back home to Malaysia. Naturally, she assumed the voices she was hearing were a sign of stress and tried to move in with her life.

Only, the voices didn’t go away. Or rather, voice. As in, singular. The voice of her grandmother has been very insistent, trying to teach her how to follow the path of becoming a Medium and doing so safely.

“Their approach to religion was to leave the gods alone, in the hope the gods would return the favour.”

There are a lot of reasons why I’ve been looking forward to reading Black Water Sister. The cover, the description, all that promise! Plus, Zen Cho’s tweet: “A stressed zillennial lesbian fights gods, ghosts, gangsters & grandmas in 21st century Penang.”

I mean, seriously! Who could read that tweet and not want to rush out immediately and grab the book? I know I couldn’t resist, as evidenced by my review here (duh). Was it worth that rush? Yes. A million times, yes.

Black Water Sister is a thrilling read, one that twists a pretty common trope (finding out one is a medium) and turning it into something completely new. I loved reading about Jessamyn’s adventure and would happily have read another thousand pages of it.

Thanks to Ace Books and #NetGalley for making this book available for review. All opinions expressed are my own.